Dear Diary,

Standing Rib Roast. Those were the words on a grocery store sign I passed by on the way home. I was so delirious and ready to be home by then, that I imagined a little slab of meat standing on puny cartoon legs. What exactly is a standing rib roast, anyway? Ribs are part of the torso; they don't have legs!

Then I started to think about roast. Why, exactly did we decide that the word roast should become a noun? It's a verb. If you roast something, it becomes a roast. If you toast something it becomes toast. But why doesn't this work for every verb? How come when you pilot a new idea it doesn't become a pilot and start whizzing off in a plane? Or when you jump on a box, why doesn't it become 'box jump'?

English is weird. So am I. We are quite the pair.

Here's a doodle I made at work: